Hello from Victoria/Queensland, Australia

[Alastair]

Tristan is right. VSH is pretty much a waste of time because the trait is lost in the next generation or two.

What I would like to see happen in NZ is we import some varroa resistant bees from say, Puerto Rico. They could be quarantined on an island for 2 or 3 years to determine they are not carrying any pathogens we don't want.

 

[tristan]

What I would like to see happen in NZ is we import some varroa resistant bees from say, Puerto Rico. They could be quarantined on an island for 2 or 3 years to determine they are not carrying any pathogens we don't want.

not going to happen. do you remember last time and that was just with seamen.

also i don't think we need to. more than likely we have the genes in our stock.
it just boils down to cost. we need a few big crowds with 1000+ hives each (more the better), who have a queen breeder and staff who can go varroa check hives.
its also a little bit better if they also put hives in high density aeras eg kiwifruit pollination. you want the hives to be exposed to mites from other hives.
thats a problem i suspect randy and others are facing and i assume they have a way around that. if all the hives around you are semi resistant to mites then you won't have any mites to test your hives with. the more resistant your hives get the worse that issue becomes. so you need a means of reliably exposing the hives to varroa.

this is something aussie should be jumping on and be full swing into.

 

[Alastair]

Me anyway, I don't think anything undesirable was introduced with the carniolan semen, other than carniolan genetics. There is a theory that the semen introduced DWV. But before then I would very occasionally see a bee with deformed wings, I think the virus has always been with us, but just came into prominence when varroa arrived and helped it multiply.

About breeding varroa resistant bees from our own genetic base, it has been tried for many years, including by a program the government spent 12 million $$ on. Results have been zero.

Compared to America we have very limited genetics here, America, which was populated by Europeans hundreds of years before we were, brought in bees from all over the world, as for a long time there were no restrictions. As a result, out of the several million feral hives that existed when varroa arrived, there were some that had just the right re combination of genetics to resist varroa. As other hives died, these multiplied. So there are genuinely treatment free bees in America now. Also in Britain which also imported bees from every corner of the globe. Here in NZ, we have only had a few importations, and nowhere near the genetic pool of some other countries.

 

[tristan]

not sure on the $12 million program, the main one i remember is the original vsh one and what we see today is the remains of that.
imho not a particularly good method but also very limited time, so the results are what i would suspect. others overseas have been running for a very very long time and they might be half way there.
even with the "right genetics" i would not expect results within 20 years.

 

[2beefarm]

Alastair, the genetic-pool argument is the most sobering part of this whole thread. $12M and nothing to show for it puts a hard ceiling on what local breeding programs can achieve when the starting gene pool is narrow. The US/UK advantage being "more import events over more centuries" is not something a program can fix in a few seasons.
tristan, the 20-year horizon is a useful reality check — even if AU imports the right stock tomorrow, the translation into locally-adapted bees is generational work. Which makes me wonder: is the better short-term play for AU actually just managing the genetics we already have more deliberately (outcome-based selection at commercial scale) while the import/quarantine path runs in parallel? Or is that too slow to matter against the mite pressure we are already under?

 

[tristan]

AU is in a slightly easier place than NZ. we don't have some of the bee diseases you guys have, which is why our imports are so tuff. but AU might be able to get stock from elsewhere because you already have a lot of the diseases.
if you get semi-resistant stock then you can get ahead a lot quicker.

imho doing it without imports is fine because you have no other choice. yes it will take a long time and would/should require govt assistance so it can be continued for generations.

i don't think nz has issues with genetics, there was some testing many many years ago and i don't recall any negative outcomes from that.
i think the vsh program here was (still is ??) running for a very short length of time so its not surprising thats there is no results.
the other factor is if you only involve a small umber of hives then thats all the genetics you get to play with. you miss out on all the other genetics around the country. this is why a wide selection base helps a lot.

AU i think will struggle. i would be surprised if AU beeks are not hit hard and many quit beekeeping. same thing happened here, many retired out when varroa came in even tho treatment was relatively cheap and easy.
best thing AU can do is get a programs up and running as fast as possible. at least one in every state if possible. the more bee hives and beeks involved in it the better to give you a wider genetic selection.

 

[Josethayil]

A lot of the bees which are showing resistance to varroa in Europe, US and other areas have some Middle Eastern and African genetics in those bees.

For example Buckfast bees have genetics from Middle eastern bees such as Anatolian, Cyprian and African genetics such as Monticola, Sahariensis, etc. All those subspecies have shorter brood development time compared to European subspecies. These bees also show very high grooming and hygenic behaviour compared to European bees. When combining these bees and selectively breeding, they do show good varroa resistance. These Middle Eastern and African lines are known for their gentleness also which is a bonus. They are not the same as the Africanised bees in lower US and south american areas.

Bees Such as Apis Mellifera Yemenitica(Jemenitica), Apis Mellifera Anatoliaca shows natural resistance to varroa.

index

For us in NZ we need to find a way to import some genetic material such as Semen or Eggs from proven lines with varroa resistance and quarantine them in an island for a few years before releasing into mainland. Without that we will be going through the cycle of trying different treatments and innovative ways of dealing with varroa. Compared to the money spend on treatments and other methods of managing varroa and the labour involved and also the hive losses due to varroa, we should be able to look at what can be done to have a bee population which survives naturally without beekeeper intervention.

There are a few people in NZ claiming to have varroa resistance in their bees, which could be true but I have not seen or heard about any verified results from that.

Mana Queen | Queen Bees | Queen Breeding Marlborough, NZ

 

[2beefarm]

tristan, that's a really useful AU/NZ comparison — I hadn't thought about it as "AU already has the diseases, so import rules on stock may be less restrictive." That could change the timeline significantly if semi-resistant genetics can be brought in.
The state-level program idea is compelling. One program per state would capture very different climates and management styles, which matters as much as genetics. But the participation problem is real — how do you get enough commercial and hobbyist beekeepers feeding data/hives into a program without it becoming a bureaucratic burden? NZ's experience seems to show that a small, centrally-run program misses most of the country's genetics.
Your "many will quit" warning lands. I've already seen hobbyists here underestimating what varroa management actually takes. Is there anything NZ did post-varroa that kept more beekeepers in than you'd expect, or was the exit wave pretty much unavoidable?

 

[tristan]

i started just after varroa came in, helping dad out. basically small commercial. the biggest thing that influenced the amount of beeks, was profit. everyone got into beekeeping when it made money and they disappeared when it didn't. thats a far bigger factor than mites ever was.

i don't recall anything that kept beeks in beekeeping in those early days. treating was easy compared to today but it made it hard to run the large amount of hives per beek. then beeks started shortcutting treatment to cut costs. hobbyists tended to get caught out by lack of good information. having hobbyist hives die from not bothering to treat was common.

the problem with nz was there was never any real incentive to do anything other than treat, especially for the people/companies who had the size and ability to do it. the people with the interest didn't have the scale or ability to do it.

then there was the first resistance scare, found by a local beek and we where at ground zero on that. that actually put a bit of panic into beeks. that resulted in i think it was Randy Olivers first conference here (held in auckland). some of the local beeks turned to organic treatments (and ran it successfully for a long time).
i can't remember if the vhs started as a result of that or not. there was a lot of interest at the start but then that really just faded away especially as the gold rush took off.

the reason for all this story is that aussie has a HUGE incentive to do something straight away. you have scientific proof of resistance (something we don't have afaik), something that govt can get behind. because aussie is in a really tough position, you can use that to get those long term projects up and running.

 

[2beefarm]

tristan, that profit-incentives explanation makes a lot of sense — the beekeeper population tracks honey prices more than mite pressure. The "people with interest didn't have scale, people with scale didn't have incentive" deadlock is a really useful frame.
It suggests the bottleneck isn't biology or even information; it's coordinating the commercial operators who could fund a breeding program so it outlasts a price cycle. Has anyone in NZ tried a levy or industry-backed co-op model, or does the sector structure make that politically impossible?

 

[tristan]

thats basically it in a nutshell.
beeks being beeks everyone one wanted to do their own thing. no one wanted to pay a levy and no one wants to work with an opposition company.
there's no incentive to do so, until now. but now no ones got the money and the sector structure has failed and once again its reforming into who knows what.

theres the other deadlock of wanting the research separated from the beekeeping industry to avoid the ups/down and politics, but you need the industry to go find the queens to breed from.

the other thing is possibly input from other industries who need pollination. they have a vested interest in ensuring they can get beehives for pollination.

 

[2beefarm]

tristan, that's a clear picture — independence culture plus distrust of competitors killed the levy path, and the sector is now reforming anyway. The research-vs-industry deadlock is real: you need industry scale to find the queens, but industry politics poison the selection criteria.
The pollination-industry angle is interesting. Growers who depend on hives for pollination have a direct commercial incentive to keep beekeeper numbers up, and they don't carry the beekeeper identity politics. Has anyone in NZ had success getting kiwifruit or avocado growers (or the pollination broker side) to co-fund bee health programs? Or do the growers just pass the cost down to beekeepers through pollination fees?

 

[tristan]

Has anyone in NZ had success getting kiwifruit or avocado growers (or the pollination broker side) to co-fund bee health programs?

not that i know of.
the high prices for pollination are only just starting as well as a lack of hives. so interesting times.
this is mostly kiwi fruit, who tend to be much more research focused. they know the value of pollination and are probably more keen to invest with beeks, even if its just to secure their own hive supply. avo's are almost a write off, they don't pay anything and i doubt they know the value of pollination let alone invest money into it.

who knows how that may play out. for the cuz over in au, i hope they take that into account. the faster the get into it the easier it is.

 

[2beefarm]

That's genuinely useful intel, thanks tristan. The kiwifruit vs avocado split makes sense — the growers who feel the pollination value directly are the ones who put money in. The AU equivalent heavyweight is almonds; they've been moving hives interstate for years, so 'secure your own supply' is already the mindset of the bigger growers here. Where it gets interesting is the shape of that investment. When kiwifruit growers put money into bee health, is it showing up as direct per-hive contracts with conditions attached, or something looser like informal sponsorship of someone's operation? The contract shape matters more than the money for anyone trying to replicate it.

 

[tristan]

i don't know much on the kiwifruit side, if they have put money directly into bee health or not. they have done studies on the effects of nets on the orchards etc. but that might change soon as their demand for hives is growing and beekeepers are still declining.

if your almond growers want beehives, they need to do more than just do supply contracts. beeks can't supply what they don't have.
au has skipped the easy part of varroa the nz has had and gone directly to the hell that usa and other countries has.
usa had huge losses last season which directly impacts their almond pollination. the same will happen to au and probably quite quickly.
so getting everyone together and getting breeding programs and mite control methods programs and training, will be very beneficial.
your hives will be all dead well before govt gets off their butts and do anything.

 

[2beefarm]

tristan — 'beeks can't supply what they don't have' is the sentence that matters. On the AU side the almond pollination season already runs on interstate hive movements, and border closures nearly broke it in recent years; the constraint is hives and the people keeping them, not contracts. USA losses flowing through to almond pollination is the warning shot. If NZ demand for hives is growing while beekeeper numbers decline, the gap only widens.
On the contract shape — understood, nothing formalised on the kiwifruit side yet. Still useful: it says the money follows direct pollination dependence, not goodwill.